Protesters in the streets. National Guard troops deployed against U.S. citizens. Sounds like scenes ripped from recent headlines, but these events date back to May Day, 1970, when New Haven became a flashpoint in a nationwide struggle. Let us peer back through the mists of history and vagaries of memory to a time that seems so different than our own yet is all too familiar in many respects.
The sixties were a time of rapid social change and changing values in the United States on many fronts. The civil rights, Women’s Liberation, gay rights, and anti-war movements were all being driven forward – often by engaged young people seeking a positive change from the status quo. They faced violent backlash from a reactionary right. Progressive leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were both assassinated in ‘68. Civil Rights and anti-war protesters were beaten and teargassed by police. Nixon and Kissinger continued to escalate the Vientnam War, while FBI director J. Edgar Hoover surveilled and repressed left leaning groups within the United States.
Huey Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party in ‘66 in response to these national conditions. The Panthers were a militant black power group who advocated for the forceful defense of the rights and wellbeing of people of color. In May of ‘69, a member of the New Haven chapter of the Black Panthers, Alex Rackley, was murdered in New Haven by three other party members who believed him to be a police informant. Prosecutors used this crime as an opportunity to go after party leaders of the Black Panthers, including Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins, founder of the New Haven chapter, charging them with orchestrating the murder. All of the defendants were scheduled to be tried in New Haven in the summer of 1970.
The Panthers, and other left-wing groups along with Yale students, organized a series of protests, concerts, and teach-ins that would culminate with a rally on the green on May 1, International Workers’ Day.
As downtown store owners boarded up the windows and doors of their businesses fearing riots and looting as hippies, freethinkers, outside agitators, and even, it was rumored, the Weather Underground, descended on the model city. These included such notable figures as poet Allen Ginsberg; Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin, “members of the Chicago Seven” who were arrested for planning and leading protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in ‘68; Black Panther party leadership including Artie Seale and Michael Tabor.
On May 1, 1970, an estimated 15,000-30,000 people packed the green. It was a warm and sunny day that belied a simmering tension. The day was mostly peaceful with speeches, music, and marches, but at various points, national guard troops clashed with protestors attacking them with tear gas. In the middle of the night, a bomb that had been planted in the basement of Ingalls Rink, exploded. Fortunately, no one was injured, and there was not significant damage to the building. New Haven was lucky that the violence wasn’t worse. Only three days later the National Guard shot and killed four students at an anti-war protest at Kent State in Ohio.
The story of the days of demonstrations is a complex one that bears closer examination. It speaks both to the historical themes of the era and the echoes of our own time.
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Images in this article are from : Chauncey, H., Hill, J. T., Strong, T., & Gates, H. L. (2016). May Day at Yale, 1970: Recollections: The trial of Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers. Prospecta Press.